Races

Getting to her, chatting with her, and finding ourselves in class all went by with me half stuck in my head, and as usual the normalcy kept me grounded. The class just as it was the day before, had the usual, littered all over. We could always count on that, and the state of my classmates on arrival, although not entirely predictable, never exceeded our expectations. A match, fight, gamble or some other indignity could always be counted on. So at the sight of lockers hitting the ground, the noise, and absolute commotion, Nene and I joined the audience, screaming. The Init girls were at their usual posts, stood at the sides trying to get the attention of their fighting boyfriends, they were always predictable, and all amusing. But I never really got involved, nnanyi's arrival at my school would be the end of me, and simply being associated with Nene would bring me more harm, cause to my father, Nene was the spawn of the devil. Then, a shout,

“ MR. ONYIRIMBA IS COMING!!!! ”.

Tugs, yells, stampedes, and absolute glee. Amidst our run the sound of Nene giggling couldn’t have been clearer, and the sound of Mr. Onyirimba’s yells, along with his frantic effort to catch-up with us, couldn’t have been funnier. The farther away we got from him, our excitement heightened.

“You know what!!!.”

“What?!!!”

“Let’s skip school!!!!.”

“We can't!!!”

“Why not? You know half the day will be spent punishing us, there’s no point in staying. At least, we’ll get the chance to chill.”

“We’ll get caught, and punished.”

“ My mother isn’t home, she went on her weekly visit, she won’t be back till dusk.”